By Kenton X. Chance
Gonsalves: …entities associated with the SCL, such as the “bandits” who want to sell St. Vincent and the Grenadines citizenship and passports have paid the SCL to work on behalf of the NDP.
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, Mar 28, CMC – Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves says he has been the subject of a two-decade campaign by the Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL), the parent company of the British-based Cambridge Analytica, which has been accused of mining data to influence election outcomes around the world.
Gonsalves, whose Unity Labour Party (ULP) is celebrating 17th anniversary in government this year, condemned what he termed the way in which “backward political forces” in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and “elements overseas” wanted to undermine progress in the country for their own selfish purposes.
“And in this regard, I speak about an organisation like Strategic Communication Laboratories, which has been here since 1998 seeking to undermine the ULP and from 2001 and onwards. They have been very nasty towards the ULP on behalf of the NDP (New Democratic Party) and they have been particularly so to the leadership of the ULP, including comrade Ralph,” said Gonsalves, speaking on the party’s own radio station.
He said other entities associated with the SCL, such as the “bandits” who want to sell St. Vincent and the Grenadines citizenship and passports have paid the SCL to work on behalf of the NDP.
Gonsalves has repeatedly referred to citizenship by investment as selling of passports and the island remains the only independent Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) without such a programme, through which citizenship if granted to foreign investors in exchange for making a substantial financial contribution to the socio-economic development of the island.
The NDP says that citizenship by investment can help to improve the economic fortunes of the island, while not imposing any further tax burden on citizens.
In his radio interview, Gonsalves said that Cambridge Analytica had undertaken “a lot of nasty work — you notice I am repeating this word nasty, nasty work for Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton in the election [in the 2016 US presidential election]…”
He said special prosecutor in the United States, Robert Mueller, the US senate and Congress, and the British parliament are investigating Cambridge Analytica.
“The evidence has emerged of SCL doing the nasty work to undermine democracy in several Caribbean countries,” he said, adding this was done in Antigua and Barbuda, St. Lucia, Dominica, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
“And I will be talking about their nefarious role,” Gonsalves said, adding that from the time they were formed in 1993, SCL proudly stated on their website and promoted themselves as “mind benders — bending minds of unsuspecting people, they trafficked in lies, distortions.
“They said that they can use behavioural analysis to twist people for them to vote particular ways if they didn’t want to vote that way,” Gonsalves said, adding that SCL once boasted on their website that they have learnt from and apply tactics used by Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda.
“That is the organisation which the New Democratic Party had working against the ULP from 1998,” he said, noting that in 2001, there was an offshore bank here called Grenadines Bank, whose owner, Douglas Lees, also owned an offshore bank in Barbados and an offshore financial institution in Bermuda.
Gonsalves said that when he arrived in office, Lees’ company from Bermuda was being used by the NDP to do due diligence on persons interested in investing here.
“Making a lot of money and doing very little work because can you imagine getting a company that is associated with an offshore bank doing due diligence for investors?” Gonsalves said.
He said that in 2001, Lees had hired SCL as his multi-million contributions to the NDP that year’s election campaign — in which the NDP was voted out of office, after 17 years.
Gonsalves said that in 2001, a young lady who was a supporter of the ULP and front desk worker at Mariners Hotel, had copied and given to Michael Hamlett — the ULP’s candidate for East Kingstown — a fax that SCL had given her to send on their behalf. The ULP used the fax as part of its campaign against the NDP.
In 2001, the SCL attempted to use race against him in the election campaign, said Gonsalves, who is of Portuguese descent.
By the 2005 election campaign, the SCL came only as advisors because then leader of the NDP, Arnhim Eustace, wanted to distance himself from prime minister and NDP founder, Sir James Mitchell Gonsalves said, adding that during the constitution referendum campaign of 2009, an entity associated with selling passports in other countries hired the SCL to work for the NDP.
“And they used every species of nastiness in that referendum,” he said.
The NDP was able to convince the electorate to reject proposed changes to the constitution. However, the ULP retained office one year later, winning the December 2010 general elections by an 8-7 margin.
Gonsalves said that the SCL was also present here in the 2015 election, which saw the ULP returned to office by the same 8-7 margin as in 2010.
“So when you see the NDP, I want the people of St. Vincent to see these nasty people from England, SCL — Strategic Communication Laboratories, who are bent on undermining democracy, bending people’s minds, having contempt for black people, having contempt for the people of the Caribbean, the leaders of the Caribbean, but they want money for themselves and their clients want to sell our passports and our citizenship,” Gonsalves said.
